When You Can't Fix It

I like to help people. I like to fix things. When my niece stubs her toe, I kiss it better. When a friend is struggling and needs comfort, I give her a shoulder to lean on and some (occasionally unwanted) advice. When a complication arises at work, I stick with it until it's solved.

But sometimes there's nothing I can do. Sometimes in my humanity, I am weak and powerless; utterly unable to lift a hand in help. In times like these, the only way help will be found is through God. But what about when He seems to withhold it?

One day someone walks into the shelter who is more damaged than the rest. She has experienced tragedies more terrible than most have. I can see it haunting her eyes. I can see it in the way she shies away from touch, the way she startles when the door opens, the way she keeps her head lowered.

And as she sits three feet away from me telling me the horrors she has suffered through, things that I had only heard about as distant stories before that night, it's so easy. It's so easy for the doubt to seep into my bones, for its ugly tendrils to begin to wrap around my soul. As darkness falls and I sit up late into the night, it continues to spread. And when I rise the next day, greeted with clouds of gray and a sheet of rain, it still lingers in my mind, hurting to my very core.

Why, God? Why do You allow someone to suffer so much pain and so many horrors at the hands of her fellow humans? Why do You allow such great injustices to be done to her by the system that is supposed to protect her? Why do You have me be one of the first people she's talked to in days who doesn't want to hurt her when You don't give me any way to help her? When all I can do is listen and give her a cup of coffee so she can sleep through the night?

I'm angry.

I'm angry at myself for not being able to do more. I'm angry at God for not enabling me to do more.

I'm angry at Him for not healing her, for not keeping her from abuse and pain, for not delivering justice for her. It was well within His power to do so; why wouldn't He?

And I'm humbled that even when I feel so much despair, He continues to be faithful. I'm humbled when He gives me peace at the start of a new day, even when she chooses to leave and return to where she has been damaged and used and abused. I'm humbled that, just as His eye is on the sparrow, He watches over all of us, and He guides her not back to those who hurt her, but to another safe place nearby.

I'm joyous when I learn that two of the guests have come to know Him personally, and two more have rededicated their life to Him. What a beautiful reminder of His everlasting grace and love for us.

I'm overwhelmed when a guest approaches me asking for prayer, and I get to lift her up to our Father above. When she shares about her day and her life and her dreams with me. What a precious confidence from a sister in Christ. What a wonderful God to allow this kinship.

Yes, I have felt anger and despair. Yes, I have questioned God and His purpose. And yes, I have been granted a glorious peace, a peace that passes understanding, a peace that would not exist through my own power.

Because sometimes I can't fix it. Sometimes there is absolutely nothing I can do. But even in those moments when I am completely helpless, God is still here me, even when it seems that He is withholding His power. Because His strength is made perfect in my weakness, even if I can't see it. So when I am weak, I will continue to trust in Him.

Because He Is who He Is. And oh how He loves us.